--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in La Paz, Bolivia | Wimup" description: "The 10 best things to do in La Paz, plus the markets, museums, viewpoints and day trips worth your time. Mapped and ranked." url: https://wimup.com/city/la-paz type: City guide updated: 2026-09-03 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10 Things To Do in La Paz La Paz, Bolivia · South America · By Wimup Editorial, 14 min read La Paz is built inside a canyon, and that single fact explains the city. The centre sits at about 3,640 metres in a bowl gouged out of the altiplano, the wealthier districts run downhill, and El Alto spreads across the rim above. Nothing here is flat, which is why the city answered its transport problem with cable cars rather than a metro. ## Quick answer Start high and come down. Ride the Red Line up to El Alto on the first clear morning you get, then work the Casco Viejo on foot: San Francisco, the amulet stalls on Linares, and the ethnography museum on Ingavi. Give the second day to the geology, either the Valle de la Luna or the old Yungas road. Keep a Thursday or Sunday for the Feria 16 de Julio, and take the first day slowly. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** May · Jun · Jul · Sep - **Ideal length:** 3 to 4 days - **Budget per day:** $40–80 - **Language:** Spanish · Aymara - **Getting around:** Cable cars & walking - **Tourism board:** [Official site](https://lapaz.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ## The 10 best things to do in La Paz ### 1. Ride Mi Teleférico up to El Alto Cable car · Estación Central, Casco Viejo This is public transport that behaves like an observation deck. Ten colour-coded lines climb out of the bowl and over the rim, and the Red Line is the one to ride: from the centre to El Alto in under fifteen minutes with the city stacked beneath the cabin and Illimani on the skyline. It runs early, it runs late, and it is cheap. - **Time:** 1 to 2 hours - **Cost:** Bs 3 per line, Bs 2 per transfer - **Best at:** Late afternoon, before the light goes - **Tip:** Face backwards on the way up. The city falls away behind you and Illimani stays in frame the whole climb. Links: [Website](https://www.miteleferico.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ### 2. Valle de la Luna Landscape · Calle 1, Mallasa, about 10 km south of the centre Ten kilometres south of the centre the clay hillsides have eroded into a field of pale spires and gullies, crossed by two marked circuits. It is geology rather than scenery: the soft rock here is mostly clay and gravel, and the towers are what is left after the rain took the rest. The valley floor is lower and warmer than the city. - **Time:** 1 hour - **Cost:** Ticketed at the gate - **Best at:** Morning, before the glare - **Tip:** The paths are narrow and unfenced in places. Wear something with grip rather than sandals. ### 3. Mercado de las Brujas and Calle Sagárnaga Market · Calles Linares and Melchor Jiménez, Rosario Two steep lanes above the San Francisco church hold the Witches' Market, where Aymara yatiri sell dried herbs, amulets and the llama foetuses still buried under new buildings as an offering to the Pachamama. It is a working supply trade rather than a curiosity. Sagárnaga alongside is the alpaca and trekking strip. - **Time:** 1 hour - **Cost:** Free to browse - **Best at:** Late morning - **Tip:** Ask before photographing a stall, and take a no for an answer. Several vendors consider the offerings private. ### 4. Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore Museum · Calle Ingavi 916, Casco Viejo The one museum to keep if you only keep one. It occupies an 18th-century colonial house on Ingavi and reads the country through what people made and wore: ceremonial masks by region, Andean weaving with the iconography explained, and rooms on the lowlands most visitors never look for. - **Time:** 1 to 2 hours - **Cost:** Ticketed, higher for foreign visitors - **Best at:** Weekday mornings - **Tip:** Start with the textile rooms upstairs while your attention is fresh. They are the strongest part of the collection. Links: [Website](https://www.musef.gob.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ### 5. Ride the old Yungas road Adventure · Departs from La Cumbre, 45 km northeast of the city The route sold as the Death Road is a single-lane gravel shelf cut into the mountainside, with no barrier and a long drop. Traffic moved to a paved bypass in 2006, so what is left is a descent of roughly 3,500 metres into subtropical forest, done on a mountain bike over most of a day. The operator matters more than the price. - **Time:** Full day - **Cost:** Guided, bike and transport included - **Best at:** Dry season, May to September - **Tip:** Ask what bikes the operator runs, whether a support vehicle follows the group, and how many riders each guide takes. Links: [Website](https://www.gravitybolivia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ### 6. Basílica de San Francisco Church · Plaza San Francisco 501, Casco Viejo The facade is the clearest piece of mestizo baroque in the city, carved with Andean birds, masks and fruit by indigenous hands working to a Spanish plan. The church went up through the 18th century after the first collapsed under snow in 1610, and the cultural centre inside opens the cloisters, the choir and the roof. - **Time:** 1 hour - **Cost:** Ticketed for the museum and roof - **Best at:** Morning - **Tip:** The roof walk is the reason to buy the museum ticket rather than only stepping into the nave. Links: [Website](https://www.museosanfranciscobolivia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ### 7. Plaza Murillo Square · Calles Comercio and Socabaya, Casco Viejo Bolivia's political square, named after Pedro Domingo Murillo, who led the 1809 uprising and was hanged on it. Three sides are the cathedral, the old presidential palace and the Legislative Palace, whose clock was reversed in 2014 so its hands turn the way a southern-hemisphere shadow does. - **Time:** 30 minutes - **Cost:** Free - **Best at:** Late afternoon - **Tip:** Look up at the Congress clock before you look at the pigeons. The hands and the numbers both run anticlockwise. ### 8. Cholita wrestling in El Alto Spectacle · El Alto, on the rim above the city Lucha libre in which the headline fighters are Aymara women in full pollera skirts, shawls and bowler hats, throwing each other around a ring to a crowd that is half local families and half visitors. It started in El Alto in the early 2000s and it is theatre rather than sport: staged, funny and pointed. - **Time:** 3 hours with transport - **Cost:** Ticketed, usually sold with hotel pickup - **Best at:** Sunday afternoon - **Tip:** Venues and show days move around. Book in the same week through your hotel or an operator rather than turning up on spec. ### 9. Feria 16 de Julio, El Alto Market · Zona 16 de Julio, El Alto Twice a week El Alto turns a district into one of the largest street markets on the continent. Thursday and Sunday, the grid around Plaza 16 de Julio fills with car parts, tools, secondhand clothes, phones, furniture and food over several square kilometres. Nothing about it is arranged for visitors. - **Time:** 2 to 3 hours - **Cost:** Free - **Best at:** Thursday or Sunday morning - **Tip:** Go up on the Red Line, carry small notes, and keep a phone in a front pocket rather than in a hand. ### 10. Mirador Killi Killi Viewpoint · Villa Pabón, above the Casco Viejo A spur of rock north of the centre with an almost complete circle of city underneath it, from the red-brick slopes climbing towards El Alto to Illimani closing the southern end. It is free, it is a local evening spot rather than a tour stop, and it gives you the shape of the bowl in a way no photograph from street level manages. - **Time:** 45 minutes - **Cost:** Free - **Best at:** Sunset - **Tip:** Take a taxi up and walk down through Villa Pabón while it is still light rather than after dark. ## Best markets in La Paz Five markets, from the herb stalls on Linares to a street fair the size of a district. 1. **Mercado Rodríguez** (Produce · Daily · San Pedro): The daily produce market, spilling downhill along Calle Rodríguez: altiplano potatoes by the dozen variety, fruit from the Yungas, lake fish. 2. **Mercado Lanza** (Food hall · Plaza Pérez Velasco · Casco Viejo): A multi-storey food hall beside Plaza Pérez Velasco, and the cheapest sit-down lunch in the centre. Api and pastel in the morning. 3. **Mercado Camacho** (Covered market · Av. Camacho · Casco Viejo): The covered market on Avenida Camacho, rebuilt and tidier than most, with lunch counters upstairs where office workers eat. 4. **Mercado de las Brujas** (Amulets · Calle Linares · Rosario): Herbs, amulets, incense and offerings for the Pachamama, sold on Linares and Melchor Jiménez by vendors who supply households rather than tourists. 5. **Feria 16 de Julio** (Street fair · Thu & Sun · El Alto): El Alto's twice-weekly street fair, Thursdays and Sundays, running for square kilometres. No concession to visitors. ## Best museums in La Paz Six collections, four of them within a few blocks of Plaza Murillo. 1. **Museo Nacional de Arte** (Art · Calle Comercio esq. Socabaya · Casco Viejo): Viceregal painting and Bolivian modern work in the Palacio Diez de Medina, a carved 18th-century house on the corner facing Plaza Murillo. [Website](https://www.museonacionaldearte.gob.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) 2. **Museo de Instrumentos Musicales** (Music · Calle Jaén 711 · Casco Viejo): More than two thousand instruments assembled by the charango player Ernesto Cavour, with charangos made from armadillo shells and a room where you are allowed to play. 3. **Museo de Metales Preciosos** (Archaeology · Calle Jaén · Casco Viejo): Pre-Columbian gold, silver and copper work, including Tiwanaku pieces, in one of the colonial houses on the cobbled Calle Jaén. 4. **Museo Costumbrista Juan de Vargas** (City history · Calle Jaén · Casco Viejo): Ceramic dioramas of old La Paz, from public hangings to carnival, and where the shared Calle Jaén ticket is sold. It covers three houses. 5. **Museo de Textiles Andinos Bolivianos** (Textiles · Plaza Benito Juárez · Miraflores): Weaving from Apolobamba, Jal'qa and Candelaria grouped by region, with the technique explained. Out in Miraflores. [Website](https://museodetextiles.org/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) 6. **Museo de la Coca** (Social history · Calle Linares · Rosario): A small, dense museum on Calle Linares that takes the leaf seriously: its place in Andean ritual and labour, the chemistry, the trade, and the politics that follow it. ## Best restaurants in La Paz Six kitchens, from a lunch counter in the old town to the tasting menu that rewrote Bolivian cooking. 1. **Gustu** (Bolivian tasting menu · Calle 10 #300 · Calacoto): The restaurant that changed how Bolivia reads its own larder, opened in 2013 on a rule that every ingredient comes from inside the country. [Website](https://www.gustu.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) 2. **Ali Pacha** (Plant-based · Calle Colón 1306 · Casco Viejo): Bolivia's first plant-based fine-dining room, in the old town. The name means plant universe in Aymara, and the pre-Hispanic diet was largely vegetable anyway. 3. **Popular Cocina Boliviana** (Set lunch · Bolivian · Casco Viejo): A short daily set menu of Bolivian home cooking, served at lunch only in a small room. Arrive early or expect the queue. 4. **Phayawi** (Contemporary Andean · Zona Sur · Zona Sur): Aymara for kitchen, and a menu built on ancestral technique: fermentation, earth ovens, altiplano grains and tubers, plated for a modern dining room in the southern zone. 5. **Propiedad Pública** (Pasta · Sopocachi · Sopocachi): Chef Gabriela Prudencio's small pasta room in Sopocachi, unfussy and consistently full. Order the carbonara and stop deliberating. 6. **Jardín de Asia** (Asian fusion · Calle 13 esq. Av. Julio Patiño · Calacoto): Asian technique applied to Bolivian produce, in a garden dining room in Calacoto. The long-standing answer in the southern zone when nobody can agree on where to eat. [Website](https://jardindeasia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ## Best viewpoints in La Paz Five places to stand and see how the city is stacked, three of them free. 1. **Mirador Killi Killi** (Free · Villa Pabón · Villa Pabón): The near-complete circle: the centre below, the brick slopes climbing to El Alto, and Illimani closing the view south. A local evening spot rather than a tour stop. 2. **Mirador Montículo** (Free · Sopocachi · Sopocachi): A small park on a rise in Sopocachi with a chapel, gardens and benches facing Illimani. Quieter than Killi Killi and easy to reach on foot from the neighbourhood's bars. 3. **Parque Mirador Laikakota** (Park · Av. del Ejército · Central): A park on a hill above the centre, with playgrounds, a children's museum and a terrace over the Prado. The one on this list that works with a tired six-year-old. 4. **Muela del Diablo** (Half-day hike · 3,825 m · Pedregal): An extinct volcanic plug at about 3,825 metres south of the city, reached on a half-day walk. Save it until you are acclimatised. 5. **Valle de las Ánimas** (Half-day walk · Ovejuyo · Ovejuyo): The other eroded valley, east of the city, with taller and sharper spires than the Valle de la Luna and a fraction of the visitors. ## Best neighborhoods in La Paz Six districts, and roughly 800 metres of altitude between the highest and the lowest. 1. **Casco Viejo** (Old town · Museums · Centre): The colonial grid around Plaza Murillo and Calle Jaén: the museums, the government, the cathedral and most of the city's history inside a walkable dozen blocks. 2. **Sopocachi** (Bars · Av. 20 de Octubre · Sopocachi): The city's evening neighbourhood, around Avenida 20 de Octubre and Plaza Avaroa: cafes, bars, live music and embassies. 3. **San Pedro** (Markets · Budget stays · San Pedro): Market streets, cheap lodging and the plaza in front of the old prison. Rodríguez runs through it, which makes it the place to eat breakfast standing up. 4. **Miraflores** (Residential · Stadium · Miraflores): Residential, flatter than most of the city and built around the football stadium, with the textile museum and family restaurants. 5. **Zona Sur** (Restaurants · Calacoto & San Miguel · Zona Sur): Calacoto and San Miguel, several hundred metres lower than the centre and noticeably warmer. Where the ambitious restaurants are. 6. **El Alto** (Separate city · 4,050 m · El Alto): A separate city on the rim at around 4,050 metres, younger and overwhelmingly Aymara, with the airport, the Feria and the cholet architecture. ## Best day trips from La Paz Six trips, from a pre-Inca capital on the altiplano to cloud forest 3,000 metres below the city. 1. **Tiwanaku** (Archaeology · 72 km west · Altiplano): The pre-Inca capital on the altiplano west of the city, a World Heritage site since 2000. The Gate of the Sun and the sunken temple. [Website](https://tiwanaku.gob.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) 2. **Copacabana and Isla del Sol** (Lake Titicaca · Long day · Titicaca): Lake Titicaca in a long day or, better, an overnight. Three and a half hours by road including the ferry, then a boat to the island's Inca paths. 3. **Chacaltaya** (Peak · 5,421 m · Cordillera Real): A 5,421-metre peak with a road almost to the top, and the ruins of what was once the world's highest ski area. Its glacier melted out by 2009. 4. **Coroico and the Yungas** (Cloud forest · 2 to 3 hours · Nor Yungas): Two to three hours by road and about 2,000 metres lower, in warm subtropical hills of coffee and citrus. The overnight below the old road. 5. **Huayna Potosí** (Climb · 6,088 m · Cordillera Real): A 6,088-metre peak an hour from the city, climbed over two days with a guide. Often sold as an easy 6,000er, which it is not. 6. **Zongo Valley** (Mountain road · Half to full day · Zongo): North over the pass beside Huayna Potosí, then a road that drops from glacier ice into cloud forest in a few dozen kilometres, past waterfalls. ## Best cafes & bars in La Paz Four rooms in Sopocachi and the south, for coffee grown at altitude and the city's oldest rock bar. 1. **HB Bronze Coffeebar** (Coffee · Calle Boyacá 3 · Sopocachi): A roastery and cafe in a restored house on Calle Boyacá, working with Bolivian high-altitude coffee. Sourdough sandwiches and llama charqui. 2. **Café Typica** (Coffee · San Miguel & Sopocachi · Zona Sur): Started by four friends in 2017 and now the city's benchmark for coffee, with branches across town. Open early, which most of La Paz is not. 3. **Equinoccio** (Live music · Sopocachi · Sopocachi): The rock bar Bolivian bands have played for more than twenty-five years, loud, unpolished and the most reliable live music in Sopocachi. 4. **Hallwright's** (Wine bar · Sopocachi · Sopocachi): A small wine bar in Sopocachi with tapas and a list that takes Bolivian high-altitude wine from Tarija seriously alongside the Argentine and Chilean bottles. ## Festivals & annual events in La Paz (2026) - **Alasitas** (24 January): The fair of the Ekeko, the Aymara god of abundance. Buyers pick up miniature houses and banknotes and have them blessed. - **Carnaval and Jisk'a Anata** (February or March): The city's carnival parade, with dance troupes down the Prado and water thrown from every balcony. - **Semana Santa** (March or April): Processions through the old town on Good Friday, and a pilgrimage on foot to Copacabana that takes most of two days. - **Fiesta del Señor Jesús del Gran Poder** (Late May or June): The city's largest festival and a UNESCO listing since 2019. Tens of thousands of dancers in costume, for a full day. - **Año Nuevo Andino Amazónico** (21 June): The Andean new year and winter solstice, marked at dawn at Tiwanaku, where the crowd faces the Gate of the Sun. - **Efemérides de La Paz** (16 July): The departmental holiday for the 1809 uprising led by Murillo, with parades, brass bands and fireworks. - **Día del Peatón** (September): A Sunday when private cars are banned and the streets fill with bicycles and families walking down the Prado. - **Todos Santos** (1 to 2 November): Families build tables of bread figures and fruit at home on the first day, and carry them to the cemeteries on the second. ## Must-try dishes in La Paz, Bolivia - **Salteñas**: A baked pastry with a juicy stew of beef, potato and olive inside. Eaten standing, and gone by noon. - **Api con pastel**: Hot purple maize drink, thick and cinnamon-spiced, with a fried cheese pastry to dip. Market breakfast. - **Plato paceño**: The city's own plate: corn on the cob, a potato, broad beans and a slab of fried cheese. - **Fricasé**: Pork stewed with yellow chilli, hominy and potato in a thin broth. Sunday morning, and taken as the cure. - **Chairo**: A thick Aymara soup of chuño, the freeze-dried potato of the altiplano, with lamb, wheat and vegetables. - **Anticuchos**: Beef heart on a skewer, grilled over coals on street corners after dark with a potato and peanut sauce. - **Sajta de pollo**: Chicken in a yellow chilli sauce with chuño, onion and tomato salad. One plate that explains the region. - **Llauchas paceñas**: A softer, cheese-filled cousin of the salteña, eaten with api from the bakeries around San Pedro. ## La Paz transport & airports - **El Alto International Airport (LPB)** (LPB): The gateway sits on the altiplano at 4,061 metres, one of the highest international airports in the world, about 10 km from the centre. The drive down takes 30 to 45 minutes. [Website](https://naabol.gob.bo/aeropuerto-internacional-el-alto/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - **Mi Teleférico** (Cable): Ten colour-coded lines, 26 stations and more than 30 kilometres of cable. A single line costs Bs 3 and each transfer Bs 2. The only way across the city that ignores the traffic. [Website](https://www.miteleferico.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - **PumaKatari buses, minibuses and trufis** (Bus): The municipal PumaKatari buses run fixed routes and are the comfortable option. Everything else is a minibus or trufi with the destination shouted out of the window. [Website](https://lapaz.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - **Terminal de Buses and long-distance roads** (Coach): The main terminal on Plaza Antofagasta handles Copacabana, Oruro, Uyuni and Sucre. Buses into the Yungas leave instead from the smaller terminal in Villa Fátima. ## La Paz at a glance - **Country:** Bolivia - **Region:** Departamento de La Paz - **Population:** 755,732 in the city (2024 census), with El Alto counted separately - **Founded:** 20 October 1548, as Nuestra Señora de La Paz - **Nickname:** Chuquiago Marka · Ciudad Maravilla - **Language:** Spanish · Aymara - **Currency:** Boliviano (Bs) - **Time zone:** UTC-4, no daylight saving - **Calling code:** +591 2 - **Airports:** LPB - **Power:** 115V in La Paz, 230V elsewhere in Bolivia · Type A/C - **Emergency:** 110 police · 118 ambulance · 119 fire ## Interesting facts - The centre sits at about 3,640 metres and El Alto airport at 4,061, which makes this the highest capital city in the world. - La Paz is the seat of government but not the constitutional capital. Sucre keeps that title and the Supreme Court. - Altitude inverts the usual geography of wealth: the expensive districts are the low ones, and the poorest are on the rim. - Mi Teleférico is the largest urban cable-car network in the world: ten lines, 26 stations and more than 30 kilometres of cable. - The clock on the Legislative Palace was reversed in 2014, so its hands run anticlockwise, the way a southern shadow moves. ## La Paz travel FAQ ### How many days do you need in La Paz? Three to four. The first is for the altitude and the old town on foot, the second for the cable-car lines and a viewpoint, the third for the Valle de la Luna or the ride down the old Yungas road. A fourth buys you Tiwanaku, or a Thursday or Sunday at the Feria 16 de Julio in El Alto. ### How do you handle the altitude in La Paz? Arrive and do nothing for the first afternoon. The centre is at about 3,640 metres and the airport higher still, so headaches and breathlessness on day one are normal. Drink more water than feels necessary, eat lightly, skip alcohol at first. Save Chacaltaya and any climbing for the end of the trip. ### Is La Paz safe for visitors? For ordinary care, yes. Pickpocketing on crowded markets and minibuses is the real risk, so keep phones out of hands and bags in front of you. Use radio taxis or an app rather than flagging an unmarked car, especially at night, and do not walk down through empty streets after dark. ### Do you need a visa for Bolivia? Many nationalities enter visa-free as tourists, and United States citizens joined them in December 2025 with a stay of up to 90 days. Rules are set by nationality and do change, so check with Bolivia's migration service before you fly, and carry a passport valid for six months. ### When is the best time to visit La Paz? May to September, the dry winter, when the days are clear and cold and the mountain roads are reliable. June and July are the driest and also the coldest at night. The rains run from November to March, warmer but with cloud that hides Illimani for days at a time and roads into the Yungas that wash out. ## Nearby guides - [Cochabamba](https://wimup.com/city/cochabamba.md): Bolivia · 10 picks - [Arequipa](https://wimup.com/city/arequipa.md): Peru · 10 picks - [Sucre](https://wimup.com/city/sucre.md): Bolivia · 10 picks - [All of South America →](https://wimup.com/south-america): 39 cities Part of the [Bolivia guide](https://wimup.com/country/bolivia.md) · [South America](https://wimup.com/south-america.md) ## Sources - [La Paz tourism board](https://lapaz.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Ride Mi Teleférico up to El Alto (official site)](https://www.miteleferico.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore (official site)](https://www.musef.gob.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Ride the old Yungas road (official site)](https://www.gravitybolivia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Basílica de San Francisco (official site)](https://www.museosanfranciscobolivia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Museo Nacional de Arte (official site)](https://www.museonacionaldearte.gob.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Museo de Textiles Andinos Bolivianos (official site)](https://museodetextiles.org/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Gustu (official site)](https://www.gustu.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Jardín de Asia (official site)](https://jardindeasia.com/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Tiwanaku (official site)](https://tiwanaku.gob.bo/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [El Alto International Airport (LPB) (official site)](https://naabol.gob.bo/aeropuerto-internacional-el-alto/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.